Boston bombing: LIVE UPDATES

SWAT teams enter a suburban neighborhood to search an apartment for the remaining suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings in Watertown, Massachusetts April 19, 2013. (Reuters / Jessica Rinaldi)

The second suspect behind the Boston Marathon bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has been arrested following an extensive manhunt that ended in the Boston suburb of Watertown. His brother Tamerlan was pronounced dead by law enforcement early Friday.

April 26

19:09 GMT: The parents of
the Tsarnaev brothers, Anzor and Zubeidat, have left their home
town of Makhachkala for Moscow from where they plan to take a
flight to the US in order to meet with their son, Dzhokhar,
RIA-Novosti reports.

18:59GMT: US intelligence agencies added the mother of the
Boston bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, to a federal
terrorism database, TIDE, about 18 months before the attack
occurred, AP cites two unnamed government officials.

April 24

23:55 GMT:In
a direct contradiction to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis,
who had stated that shots were fired from inside the boat where
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was apprehended, officials disclosed to the AP
that he was unarmed at the time of arrest.

23:30 GMT: Federal investigators have disclosed that the
homemade, pressure-cooker bombs were triggered by a remote
detonator, the AP reports. The “close-controlled” devices
are described as the sort used in remote-controlled toys.
According to one US official, the suspects would have had to be
several blocks in proximity to the explosives to detonate them.

The AP also reports that Russian officials approached the CIA
months after the FBI had cleared Tamerlan Tsarnaev in an
investigation into possible terrorist ties. The CIA then added
the suspect's name into its massive Terrorist Identities Datamart
Environment database. Russia’s initial warning to the FBI was
shared in March 2011.

20:20 GMT: American authorities have informed the
suspects’ family that they may now access older brother
Tamerlan's body for burial, though an uncle’s request to a
Boston-area mosque for a funeral was denied, according to their
aunt Patimat Suleimanova.

The mosque, which is run by the Islamic Society of Boston, did
not respond to a request by NBC News, though the group did say
that its congregants had been questioned by the FBI. Tamerlan
Tsarnaev had attended and occasionally caused disruptions at the
mosque, after which he was threatened with ejection.

18:50 GMT: The Boston Marathon explosions were triggered
by a remote-controlled detonator, AP quotes the US officials
close to the ongoing investigation as saying, adding that the
bombs were not very sophisticated. One of the officials described
the detonator as "close-controlled" — meaning it had to be
triggered within several blocks of the bombs. It was not
immediately clear what the detonation device was. A criminal
complaint outlining federal charges against the only surviving
suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, described him as holding a cellphone
in his hand moments before the first explosion.

April 23

20:15 GMT: Katherine Russell, the wife of slain suspect
Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the mother of his child, has released a
statement through her attorney, Amato DeLuca:

Our firm is representing Katherine Russell and she has asked us
to make a short statement. As you know from news reports, Katie
married her husband in June of 2010. Since then, she has been
living in Cambridge, raising her child and working long hours,
caring for people in their homes who are unable to care for
themselves. Katie grew up in Rhode Island and has always
remained close to her parents and sisters here, as well as her
extended family. She is fortunate to have the support of her
loving family now, as they, too, struggle to come to terms with
these events and the deep sorrow we all feel following the
events of last week. Meanwhile, she is doing everything she can
to assist with the investigation.

The injuries and loss of life — to people who came to celebrate
a race and a holiday — has caused profound distress and sorrow
to Katie and her family. The reports of involvement by her
husband and brother-in-law came as an absolute shock to them
all. As a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, Katie deeply
mourns the pain and loss to innocent victims — students, law
enforcement, families and our community. In the aftermath of
this tragedy, she, her daughter and her family are trying to
come to terms with these events.

Thank you.

19:32 GMT: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
told a Senate Judiciary panel that an immigration bill currently
making its way through congress could fix border control
weaknesses which might have facilitated last week’s Boston
Marathon bombings.

"The bill will help with this because it requires that
passports be electronically readable as opposed to having manual
input," Napolitano testified, adding the legislation
"really does a good job of getting human error out of the
process."

Previously, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham revealed that a
misspelling of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's name on flight records when
departing the United States for Russia last year may have allowed
him to avoid detection from authorities. Tsarnaev had been put
into the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, which helps
US officials screen individuals arriving to the country,
following a 2011 interview with the FBI.

18:23 GMT: Lawyers for Katherine Tsarnaeva, widow of the
slain Boston bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, have said that
she is doing everything she can to assist authorities. Tsarnaeva
said it had come as an absolutely shock to her that either her
husband or brother-in-law had played any role in last week’s
deadly blast. Her lawyers continued that she is “trying to
come to terms with these events.” It remains unclear to what
extent she has helped authorities, as her attorneys would not
comment on whether she had already spoken with federal
investigators.

17:36 GMT: Eight-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest
victim in the Boston Marathon bombings, was laid to rest during a
private funeral on Wednesday morning.

"We laid our son Martin to rest, and he is now at peace. We
plan to have a public memorial service in the coming weeks to
allow friends and loved ones from our community to join us for a
celebration of Martin’s life," WCVB Boston cites a statement
by the family as saying.

The Richard’s family thanked the outpouring of “love and
support” they had received over the last week. They further
expressed their faith that the criminal justice system will now
“do its job” following the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on
Friday night.

Martin’s mother and sister were among those injured in the dual
blasts.

17:00 GMT: The surviving Boston Marathon bombings suspect,
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told interrogators that US-led wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan had motivated him and his brother to carry out
last week’s deadly assault, The Washington Post cites US
officials as saying on condition of anonymity.

The 19-year-old suspect, who is currently hospitalized and in
fair condition, further acknowledged his role in planting the
explosives near the Boston Marathon finish line last week.

The officials, who believe the brothers acted alone in carrying
out the attack, believe the pair had been “self-radicalized” as a
result of US actions in the Muslim world and information found on
the Internet.

01:54 GMT:Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect
in the Boston Marathon bombings, told investigators that his
brother Tamerlan had organized and led the attack that left three
people dead and scores injured last week, a US government source
told CNN.

Tsarnaev met with investigators from his hospital bed Monday,
telling them he and his brother worked alone and were motivated
by a drive to "defend" Islam from a US attack. Tsarnaev, who is
unable to speak because of a gunshot wound in his neck, and his
brother also fit the description of lone-wolf jihadists who
worked without the backing of a major terror network, the source
said.

April 22

23:51 GMT: Tamerlan Tsarnaev was known to have argued with
and lashed out at a preacher in a local mosque, the Associated
Press reports. Before Thanksgiving in November 2012, Tamerlan
argued with a preacher who said it was appropriate for Muslims to
celebrate some American holidays. This January, he called the
preacher a “hypocrite” who was “contaminating people's minds”
during a sermon that included praise for Martin Luther King
Jr.

22:42 GMT: Evidence from the first interrogation
suggests the suspects in the Boston Marathon attack were
“motivated by religion” but had no ties to Islamist terror
groups, two US officials told the Associated Press on condition
of anonymity. While the Tsarnaev brothers - like many
Chechens - practiced Islam and appeared to have a strong sense of
ethnic identity, the two had only spent a small and early portion
of their lives in their homeland. Both were ethnic Chechens, but
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was born in Kyrgyzstan while brother Tamerlan
was born in the Russian republic of Kalmykia. By the time of the
Boston attack, both brothers had been living in the United States
for over a decade.

22:28 GMT: Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has
been read his Miranda rights by a US judge during a bedside
hearing in the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center.

22:07 GMT: The owner of the car hijacked by the two Boston
Marathon bombing suspects claims that one of them admitted to
carrying out the blasts. “Did you hear about the Boston
explosion? I did that,” one of the suspects asked the victim
according to a report obtained by The Wall Street Journal. “I
am serious,” he added showing the bullet inside his gun’s
magazine.

22:01 GMT: A 7-year-old girl remains hospitalized in
critical condition with “multiple leg injuries” along with
several dozen others who suffered injuries in the Boston Marathon
blasts. The Children's Hospital of Boston declined to identify
the girl.

21:13 GMT: The first victim of the blast Krystle Campbell,
29, was laid to rest at a private ceremony at St. Joseph's Church
in Medford.

18:45 GMT: People in Boston and other cities are observing
a moment of silence for the victims of the Boston Marathon
bombing, a week after the explosions that killed 3 people and
injured more 170 on April 15.

18:44 GMT: Tsarnaev agreed to a probable cause hearing
scheduled for May 30, according to the Department of Justice.

18:10 GMT: The 19 year-old Dzhokhar has been charged with
using weapons of mass destruction, a federal crime which is
punishable by death, life in prison, or any other indeterminate
prison sentence, the Justice Department said. In addition to that
he has been charged with malicious destruction of property
resulting in death.

17:31 GMT: The White House said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,
the surviving suspect will not be tried as an enemy combatant in
a military tribunal. Tsarnaev will be prosecuted in the federal
court system as under US law the country’s citizens cannot be
tried in military commissions, said Jay Carney, a White House
spokesman. He added that President Barack Obama's entire national
security team supports the decision.

17:30 GMT: Federal prosecutors charged Tsarnaev while he
still remains in a hospital bed in serious condition. "There
has been a sealed complaint filed," said Gary Wente, circuit
executive for the U.S. Courts for the First Circuit.

16:45 GMT: A misspelling in Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s name kept
the FBI in the dark about the slain suspect’s early 2012 trip to
Russia, US Senator Lindsey Graham said.

“He went over to Russia, but apparently, when he got on the
Aeroflot plane, they misspelled his name,” Graham, a South
Carolina Republican said on Fox television this morning. “So
it never went into the system that he actually went to
Russia.”

Graham continued that it remained unclear whether Tsarnaev had
intentionally misspelled his name in order to cover up his
tracks.

16:45 GMT:

Recovering from the Boston Marathon bombings will psychologically
be

“a marathon”, Dr Terence Keane, a psychiatrist at the
Boston Medical Center where many of the injured are being
treated, said.

Stating it might take months for people to get back to normal,
Keane urged people to “limit exposure to the media” and
“establish normalcy.”

"For many people it will be difficult to get back into the
normal routine. You may not feel like it, you may not be
energized to do this, yet from a set of long-standing scientific
studies, the people that do best are the people that get back to
normal," Dr Keane said.

16:38 GMT: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the
Boston Marathon bombings, is answering brief questions by nodding
his head, a source close to the investigation told CNN on Monday.
The source said investigators have questioned Tsarnaev on whether
there were more bombs, explosives, weapons caches, or if anyone
had helped him and his brother carry out last Monday’s attack. It
was not immediately clear what information the suspect, who is
currently restrained and on a ventilator, has provided. The
source continued that investigators are questioning Tsarnaev
every few hours in the presence of doctors.

15:00 GMT: Forty eight people injured in last Monday's
attack are continuing to receive inpatient medical
treatment, while two remain in critical condition. On Sunday it
was reported that fifty two people remained hospitalized, while
three were in critical condition.

13:45 GMT: Boston Medical Center's doctors: "It will take
months for the victims of the bombing to recover".

13:37 GMT:

BROOKLYN: RIGHT NOW - SUSPICIOUS POWDER FOUND IN BROOKDALE
HOSPITAL, HAZMAT EN ROUTE. MANHATTAN: SUSPICOUS PACKAGE AT
CHURCH ST & WORTH ST.

10:50 GMT: The FBI is disputing a claim by the mother of
the suspected Boston bombers, who said the bureau had spoken to
the older brother after the bombs exploded at last Monday's
marathon. At FBI headquarters in Washington, spokesman Michael
Kortan says the bureau's 2011 interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev
was the only FBI contact with him. Kortan is standing by the
bureau's public statement from Friday in which the bureau
described that interview. That statement says the FBI did not
learn of the identities of the bombing suspects, Tamerlan and his
brother, Dzhokhar, until Friday, the day Tamerlan was killed. The
brothers' parents in Russia have insisted that the FBI continued
to monitor Tamerlan after the 2011 interview and say both of
their sons were set up.

09:19 GMT: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains in a serious
condition, reports the FBI at the request of Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center, where the suspect is being treated.

“Tamerlan wasn’t a religious fanatic," she told RT’s
Madina Kochenova. “He was curious about religion. He started
to be really interested in Islam about three years ago, but
he was never a radical. We would talk about his commitment to
religion, but it wasn’t extreme.”

3:45 GMT: FBI asked Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife's lawyer if
they could speak with her, but he informed them of her refusal.

On Sunday, the authorities visited the home of Tsarnaev's
in-laws, where Katherine Russell Tsarnaev is currently staying -
according to lawyer Amato DeLuca's statement to AP. Having gotten
a refusal, they are now discussing how to proceed.

Russell-Tsarnaev has been saying that she never suspected
Tamerlan of anything and that nothing prompted her to think he
was behaving suspiciously even after the bombings.

Tamerlan would normally stay at home to take care of their
daughter while Katherine was away working. Her lawyer says
Tsarnaev was home on the day of Tamerlan's death, as his wife had
left for work.

3:00 GMT: The Tsarnaev brothers were allegedly planning to
head to New York, having hijacked their Mercedez-Benz getaway car
and told the hostage driver of their intentions. That is
according to a New York Times' conversation with a US official.